


How Delgado got into the fold

by Bacner



Category: Cloak & Dagger (TV 2018)
Genre: AU-Canon divergence, F/M, Mindscapes, Mr. Jip (Cloak & Dagger), Papa Legba (Cloak & Dagger), Personal Growth, dark side, post-Rabbit holes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-23 17:44:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18554677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bacner/pseuds/Bacner
Summary: Post-'Rabbit Holes'. Father Delgado learns some things about the secret going-ons of New Orleans.





	How Delgado got into the fold

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine.

…The first thing that Delgado realized was off about the situation was the smell of food that was coming from his current home. The second – was the smell, (and sound), of a woman, also coming from the same place. Yes, the good father had had problems with abstinence previously, in the past, (especially before he tried to find salvation in the arms of good mother church), but still, he hadn’t planned any of this beforehand; in fact, he hadn’t planned anything like this at all…plus he was running low on cash; street evangelism was well and good, but it didn’t pay the bills; true, Delgado didn’t care about such things anymore, not really, (and it showed in his new home), but, regardless, the entire situation was off.

With some trepidation, Delgado opened his door, and saw the meal set on his table: thick slices of rye bread, pulled pork and porridge, and also – some sort of sauerkraut salad. That was point a. Point b, the woman, was in his kitchenette, putting out a 12-pack of dark type of beer from a portable fridge. In short, this was reminiscent of some of Delgado’s better dreams; true, in them the woman was usually much less dressed, but Delgado was a realist and took was he was given – a good meal at the very least, (he hoped).

“Detective O’Reilly?” he asked quietly, closing the door behind himself – he did not want any interruptions right now. 

“No!” the woman whirled around, fire and ire dancing in her eyes, (have we mentioned that be-fore he cut-off his sexcapades off cold, Delgado knew his way around women). “I’m not that weakling! I’m Mayhem!”

“Sorry, sorry,” Delgado backed down quickly. “So, uh, what are you doing here?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Mayhem’s bad mood seemed to vanish as quickly as it appeared, but Delgado was not quite fooled. 

“No,” he did not back down this time. “Why are you here? Don’t you have anyone else-“

“No,” Mayhem cut him off. “I don’t. Not like this.”

“Um,” Delgado moved closer and took a whiff. “You smell sober-“

“I am sober – for now,” Mayhem exhaled, and pulled out a can out of the 12-pack, (with her bare hands). “Beer?”

Delgado gave this matter more thought than one would expect from him in this situation.

“You want me to address your spiritual needs first?” he suggested, doing his best to subdue his own baser nature. This was not exactly the temptation of St. Anthony, but Delgado himself was not St. Anthony, (nor was he a saint, period).

“That’s unnecessary,” Mayhem said flatly, “I don’t have any that need addressing. I’m just – not half a person, and, after the dark side, I’m cold, and lonely.”

“No, of course not,” Delgado agreed, doing his best to ignore the entire dark side mention – somehow he suspected that Mayhem was not talking about Star Wars, here. “You’re your own person; detective O’Reilly-“

There was a pause as Mayhem clearly thought over how to respond, and Delgado realized that he had moved closer to the woman as he spoke, maybe even too close. “I’m not her, we aren’t the same,” Mayhem spoke, “not anymore, but I am…cold, and lonely, and the dark side is scary, when you think about it. If you are going to talk about her, can you hold me? I… need human warmth after all, it seems.”

Silence came back as the pair just looked at each other, and then, finally, Delgado complied. He was a free man, after all, plus he did not intend to take advantage of her, and not just because she could literally break him if she wanted to. “So, the good detective?” he spoke gently after several minutes of, well, cuddling, (and, possibly, beer – he was not sure. Perhaps his abstinence from women had affected him more than he thought). 

“She isn’t me! I am not her! We are different-“

“Yes, but you look the same-”

“It’s Roxxon’s doing.”

“Oh,” Delgado blinked. “Those people. Of course. We, the people of New Orleans, are a mixed bag, and don’t get along, but Roxxon? They were never interested in fitting in or getting along with anyone here. These days they seem to be mostly gone from here, but they did do damage while they were here, and no one misses them…” Delgado trailed off as Mayhem both sat in his lap and leaned into his embrace. It felt somewhat natural too, by the way. “Right. What happened to you?” he asked in a more personal tone of voice.

“I went to look for Connors in the dark side via Cloak’s cloak, but I needed Dagger’s powers because, apparently, I’m only half a person,” Mayhem muttered. “The dark side itself is…seductive, it is…addictive, it is power, but if you turn around and look – it is the wrong kind of power, sort of similar to getting high, you know? It is fun, a rush, and even a holiday of some sort, but once it’s over, you look around and realize that you’ve wasted the last of your monies and don’t have anything to show for it – and that’s the best case scenario-“

“…Tell me about it,” Delgado muttered, his former happiness now gone, as he went down his own memory lane – for him, it was more of a drunk driving rather than cannabis or some other drug, but real nonetheless – and Mayhem’s example also felt real and concrete enough to be any-thing but. 

“Yes,” the latter nodded as Delgado asked the question. “I’m not Brigid, but we do share memories, if only to a point. So what do we do now?”

Delgado looked around his admittedly unimposing place. “I will probably need to get a job,” he confessed. “A regular one. Regular meals are nice. How are you able to afford all of this?”

“It’s cheaper than it looks, plus I know how to cook. So does Brigid,” Mayhem confessed. “Damn it! I am not just half a person! But I am nothing like her either!”

“Okay, let’s start at the beginning,” Delgado pulled away his plate, (still partially full) and looked at Mayhem. “Who told you that you’re just half-a-person?”

“The dark side.”

“And who, or what, is the dark side?”

“It’s the dark half of the universe, one that is full of fears, regrets, and despairs,” Mayhem almost smiled. For some reason, Delgado found it to be disturbing. “Actually, it is quite enjoyable…as long as you ignore that you’re only half-a-person, and if you do not, then it is just as bad as it sounds.”

There was a pause as Delgado digested the information, (pardon the pun). “And how do you know all that? No, scratch that, how did you end up there, wherever there is?”

“Cloak sent me there,” Mayhem shrugged, as she looked Delgado in the eye, (with some of her usual confidence and character returning, perhaps). “Well, ‘sent’ me might not be the right term, but I’m using it regardless.”

“And Cloak is?” Delgado felt as if he was missing on the details. Sure, he was getting the general gist, but the proverbial devil in the details made it hard to understand anything.

Mayhem looked at him in a manner that also implied that he was missing something. “You mean you don’t know?” she asked incredulously. “I thought that you and Tyrone were like that back in school.”

“…Tyrone,” Delgado blinked. “Tyrone. He’s like you?” he paused and tried to backpedal, but Mayhem ignored the theoretical insult.

“No, they were first, I suppose. I am more like them…maybe, but I am unique. Brigid can go and…go away,” Mayhem snapped. 

“They?” Delgado raised an eyebrow.

Mayhem gave him another look – a thoughtful, estimating one, but not a hostile one. “I’m taking a risk here,” she muttered to herself. “I don’t like either Cloak or Dagger, only I do… Father, have you eaten your fill? Then we need to go and meet some people after all!”

Delgado looked down at his plate. “Yes, I guess I have,” he confessed. “What now?”

“We need to meet some people…and also, hopefully, to resolve the entire issue of me being just half-a-person after all!”

/ / /

The church to which Mayhem took Delgado looked dilapidated. No, not that – historical. “This is what I’ve been missing?” Delgado muttered to himself, sounding more questioning than anything else.

“Well, New Orleans is a big city, you just cannot know everything and everyone in it,” Mayhem shrugged. “You can just know some places and some people and hope that it will enough.” She walked in, Delgado followed.

“Mayhem. You’re back!” a female voice cried.

“Dagger. Cloak, you’re here.”

“Naturally…who’s that?”

“This is father Delgado. Hello, father, what are you doing here?” Tyrone, who really should be somewhere else, asked his former high school counselor from behind the two women.

“He’s in my corner,” Mayhem crossed her arms. “If we’re to figure out why some people claim that I am only half-a-person, I’ll need someone in my corner, and it’s him.”

“Some people?” the other woman wrinkled her nose. “Mayhem, this was probably Papa Legba, the loa-“

“And if he and his friends are going to play headgames with me, a Catholic priest could be just the man to help me,” Mayhem looked down at Dagger, (who looked vaguely familiar, but Delgado just could not establish as to how come). “Of course, his tattoos indicate that he’s a high-ranking member of the Yakuza instead, but you never know. He just doesn’t look Japanese, see?”

There was a pause as both Tyrone and Tandy looked at Delgado. “You can’t return to the past and you cannot enter the same river twice,” he said flatly, sounding much more curt and professional than how he usually did, (not that Tandy knew that). “I’ve really turned my life around…at least until you came along,” he added to Tyrone, with a glare. 

“Sorry,” the younger man admitted, sheepishly. “It’s all Roxxon’s fault, basically?”

“Of course, but, still, what is going on here? What’s with the entire Cloak and Dagger nonsense?” Delgado was not entirely mollified yet.

Tyrone and Tandy looked at each other, then at Mayhem and Delgado, then at each other. “I think that we need to do it together this time,” Tyrone told his opposite. “Mayhem, if you want him to come along for the ride, grab him.”

“Done!” Mayhem nodded as she did exactly that.

“Wait, what?” Delgado blinked, just as Tyrone and Tandy grabbed both of them at once and did their Cloak and Dagger thing.

/ / /

“Whoa!” Delgado blinked moments later as the four of them ended up in Mayhem’s mindspace, (or somewhere similar).

“This is new and different,” Mayhem herself was impressed. “Nowhere as Gothic and dark as the last time, when I went through you,” she nodded at Tyrone.

“Yes, well, I deal in people’s fears, Tandy – in their dreams, together we’re the sum of their parts or something, and this time? You’re the person, we’re in your head,” Tyrone said grouchily, as he and Tandy led the older couple to a door. “Let’s go in, shall we, and see why you’re half-a-person, supposedly.”

“Let’s,” Mayhem nodded and opened the door. Immediately the scenery changed from a generic idyll to a clearing of some sort, in the middle of which stood half a wooden carving, done very impressively, colored in a lovely dark shade of green, but – only half a carving. The other half was missing outright.

“Interesting,” Delgado muttered, impressed despite himself. “The color seems to be lightening where it ends.”

“What?” Mayhem moved over, visibly displeased over the revelation and looked as well. “What’s that?”

‘That’ were buds: whereas the wood on the carved sides was finished, smooth and polished, here it was rough, and it was actually sprouting twigs and leaf buds mentioned above. 

“I think it is trying to grow a new half,” Delgado said thoughtfully, as he touched one of the twigs.

Flash!

The scenery changed again, this time to a scene in uptown New Orleans – but a different New Orleans, a city abandoned by people, yet inhabited by shadows of all shapes and sizes, and dominated by a huge, human-shaped one, one that just reeked of cold and horror, (even though neither cold nor horror reek, technically speaking) – and it was standing opposite of Mayhem.

“Tandy?” Mayhem called out, bravely trying to sound like her usual self, but not really quite succeeding. “Are you back yet?”

“Dagger can’t hear you, half-person,” the shadow spoke. “She and Cloak are busy with Connors; they cannot reach you right now, for while their power is great, so’s mine, and once again I ask you, will you take my hand? Will you exchange power for loyalty?”

“Don’t you have someone else to bother?” Mayhem looked even unhappier now. “Like that Chantelle woman?”

“She’s going to get what she is coming to her, and you are here and now, and are the woman of the hour, half-person. Will you take my hand? Will you accept the dark New Orleans as yours?”

“Not so fast, Mr. Jip,” spoke a different voice, one that was both familiar and strange, and…Tyrone appeared on the scene.

“Papa Legba,” the shadow – Mr. Jip – spoke-up crossly. “What are you doing here? This is no business of yours, she’s done-“

“No, she’s not,” Tyrone/not Tyrone grew to giant proportions himself, and with a finger punched a hole in the shadowy sky. Immediately, sunlight came through, carrying with it a voice of a prayer, for the sake of Detective O’Reilly’s soul. “People haven’t given up on her yet, she’s free to go.”

The giant shadow – Mr. Jip – muttered something rude under its breath and vanished.

“Um, how do I get out of here?” Mayhem turned to not Tyrone. “Do I wait for Tandy or-?”

“This is your last freebie for a while, half-a-person,” not Tyrone exhaled. “You really need to decide who and what you are going to be, or else Mr. Jip is going to get you sooner than later.”

Mayhem made some sort of a puppy face here. The giant not Tyrone rolled his eyes and with a single swat sent her through the hole.

Flash!

“…And I think that you know the rest,” Mayhem muttered as she and Delgado and the others found themselves back in the clearing with the half-a-carving. “Sorry for trying to killer Connors, though he had started it-“

“You’re sounding like a Republican; stop it,” Tandy rolled, even as she shifted her attention back to Tyrone “And are you okay?”

“Papa Legba, the chief loa, knows me,” Tyrone muttered. “And I’m not even that close with Evita or her aunt yet.”

“Isn’t Evita your girlfriend from school?” Delgado turned to the younger man.

“Yes. Well. It’s complicated,” Tyrone looked away – and his gaze met Mayhem’s, unfortunately.

“What Tyrone here means, actually, is that your case is simple,” Tandy switched the others’ attention onto her. “You and Brigid are sort of like me and Tyrone are – opposites of each other. Only while Tyrone and I were two people already, before we met each other a long time ago, you and Brigid were not. Only now, you two are, and you need to decide how you are going to live without each other to balance you out. I mean, maybe we could put you two back together-“

“No!” Mayhem snapped. “I mean, how do I become a whole person-?”

“I think that you already are – see the new growth on your spiritual half? You’re starting to get there – it’ll be a long process yet, but you are going there,” Delgado spoke up suddenly.

“Can you help still? I don’t want to be alone for this,” Mayhem muttered.

“You won’t,” Delgado nodded firmly. “Now let’s get out of here-“

…And they were back in the church.

“Okay,” he said, blinking and trying to catch his bearings. “And now you people should explain to me how you’re doing all of this and how long was this going on?”

Tyrone and Tandy looked at each other and then at Mayhem. Clearly, some explanations would now be required…

_The end?_


End file.
